Extend and Conquer: Introducing Kirix Strata Extensions and Developer Resources | Data and the Web

Data and the Web

Extend and Conquer: Introducing Kirix Strata Extensions and Developer Resources

Puzzle PieceWe're really excited to announce our Kirix Strata™ Extensions section along with a load of resources for developers.

As with other browsers (like Firefox, which is making some news of its own today), Kirix Strata is extensible and supports a plug-in architecture. It uses the JavaScript syntax, so any developers who are familiar with Javascript should find creating Strata scripts pretty easy.

Unlike other browsers though, Strata packs a full database engine for the journey. Combine this power with the ability to access stuff on the web (web content, APIs, DOM manipulation) as well as local files, and you've got yourself a highly customizable rich internet application for data-centric tasks.

We've been scripting a lot for client projects and it has pleasantly surprised us how much one can do with Strata's engine. We've also been creating a bunch of extensions in-house that we'll be rolling out in the coming weeks for everyone to use.

Here's a full list of the stuff we've added to the website today:

Extension Library

The library is the place where we'll be listing all new extensions. We'll be rolling these out as we create them, but we'd also be really happy to publish any extensions developed by the community that may be useful to a wide range of people. Got an extension to share? Please submit it and we'll post it.

Extension Wizard

The Extension Wizard makes some of the mundane tasks of creating scripts and extensions a little less painful. There are three things it offers:

  1. Extension Packaging: Create the appropriate “packaging” for an extension. Just write your script and let the wizard package it up for you to distribute.
  2. Script Templates and Components: This area provides a number of pre-packaged scripts that you can use in your own development. It has scripts for such things as form controls, form layouts, database/SQL examples and API examples (e.g., FTP requests and an RSS feed parser)
  3. Sample Applications: You can also create variations of a full application which is helpful when you want to take an already-built extension, open it up and see what makes it tick.

Build Your Own Extension

The build-your-own page provides a high-level view of creating an extension for Strata.

Developer Resources

With the Developer Resources section, we've finally put some meat around the skeleton API documentation that we previously made available on our website. This section provides an overview of working with scripts in Strata as well as information about the syntax and API.

Submit an Extension

Got an extension that you'd like to share with the world? Submit it here and we'll post it to the library.

Kirix Strata does a lot of great stuff out of the box for working with and reporting on data. But scripting and extensions offer power users an opportunity to develop customized applications for themselves and their co-workers. If you are a developer, we hope you dig into the documentation and find it valuable. If you aren't a developer, we just hope that the extensions library will prove useful to you over time.

Lastly, please let us know if you have any questions about scripting or extensions and we'll be happy to help!

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Data and the Web is a blog by Kirix about accessing and working with data, wherever it is located. We have a particular fondness for data usability, ad hoc analysis, mashups, web APIs and, of course, playing around with our data browser.